Whether you’re a fleet manager or you’re thinking of setting up your own fleet business, then take a look at some of the tips we’ve created for your benefit. We’ll be helping you to successfully get started in your fleet management career by listing some of the essentials you need to know and how you can help make sure your fleet runs smoothly. Take a look below to find out more.
Decide On The Locations You’ll Cover
When you’re setting up a fleet, you need to decide the scope of area in which you’ll be operating. You may want to only cover a certain city or county or operate nationally. You could even consider operating in Europe too. If you’re setting up your own fleet management business, you could start out operating on a smaller scale and expand as your business grows and develops.
This will help you understand the scale and scope of what kind of business vehicle hire you to need to go for. If a specific location does not have the requirements or demand, you do not need to provide vehicles for that region. This will help you optimize the performance of your fleet company and allow you to get the best returns on your investment.
Consider Leasing Vehicles
Instead of buying all the vehicles and equipment for your fleet and business outright, consider whether you could look into business vehicle hire to satisfy your businesses needs. This can help to save money and replace equipment more quickly should there be a breakdown or fault. It also helps to keep costs lower so that you can choose to hire more vehicles if you’re expanding your services to meet higher demand
Complying With Regulations
It’s essential to make sure you follow the laws and guidelines outlined in the UK and Europe for how frequently drivers need to take breaks and sleep to ensure they’re meeting safety standards. It’s also useful to help you to keep track of whether drivers are following their set routes and meeting timelines. Vehicle tracking will pick up on whether your drivers are exceeding speed limits and road safety rules, and whether you need to take disciplinary action for drivers not practicing safety standards.
Managing Driver Training
Make sure you keep track of all your drivers and their level of training, if they’re training is becoming out of date, you’ll need to ensure they are freshly trained to help maintain the best possible safety standards. Training should be regularly updated and should include vehicle training, health and safety training, and company policy training.
Fleet Tracking
To monitor your fleet’s activity, you’ll need to make sure your vehicles are fitted with tachograph technology. Tachographs provide data on your fleet’s activity, including timing, location, and driver activity. You will also need software in order to download and track the information taken from the tachographs. Take a look online to learn more about FleetGO’s tacho download to find how it can help you effectively manage the tracking of your fleet.
Organising Efficient Driver Routes
As a fleet manager or fleet business owner, you need to manage the routes of your drivers to keep deliveries running smoothly and keep suppliers happy. Consider how you can make deliveries as efficient as possible. For example, planning deliveries geographically along routes that achieve deliveries is the quickest time as possible. You need to be keeping up to date with things such as road works and accidents that have occurred in order to help make sure your drivers can stick as close as possible to their planned timetables and meet client needs.
Holding Performance Reviews For Drivers
If you hold regular performance reviews with your drivers, it gives the opportunity to address both positives and negatives of their performance. For example, you could highlight potential timing issues, their vehicle activity, and whether they are meeting break requirements. It also gives you the chance to set goals and targets for their performance. For example, they are meeting a set number of deliveries in the day or improving driving habits.
Business-To-Business Marketing
You need to make sure your marketing is focused on business-to-business strategies in terms of your marketing. Investing in digital marketing to reach more suppliers is one of the most important areas for reinvestment. Some of the best digital marketing strategies include PPC, for example, placing banner ads on other sites that link to your website. When selling business-to-business, it’s also good to try and make sales face-to-face to help earn a supplier’s trust in your business. Make sure your website lists all the information customers will need and engaging content featuring SEO and keyword research to boost your presence on search engines.
Industry Changes
As a fleet manager or owner, keep up to date with the changes happening in your industry. This allows your fleet to run more efficiently and meet more client demand potentially and keeps up with competitors in your field. It’s down to you how much your fleet embraces advances in technology, such as electric vehicles and digital technology, but it could help to give your business a boost and get ahead of some of the other direct competitors in your field.
